The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-03-19
RESTS ON THE WORKMEN.

The Burden of Waste Which brushes So
ciety Because of the Rum Curse-Fig-
ures Analysed.
Taking the well-known estimate of
Hon. David A. Wells that the total ex-
penditure in the United States for all
kinds of rum amounts to the appalling
sum of 800, 100000 every year, it will
readily be granted that but little, if
any, of it is consumed by persons I'M
der fifteen years of age. Deducting
the total of these children, this vast
total of seven hundred millions repre-
sents an average expense, to every per-
son, man or woman, above that age,
of $3.50 yer year. Nearly one-half of
the entire population of the Union is
made up of farmers. They, as is well
known, are not largely made up of
drinking men. Their open-air life, the
necessity of industry and economy
to make their calling a profit
able one, initiate against the
formation of the drink habit;
and, withal, the farming class
is largely made up of intelligent, read
ing, thinking men. who can find better
occupation for their leisure hours than
loafng among the fetid odors of stale
beer and forty-rod whisky, in the dirty
purlieus of corner saloon. They are
temperate men-yes, and Temperance
men, too; for the great bulk of the
temperance sentiment of the country
is to be found among the residents of
the rural districts. And, still further,
the farmers live far away from saloons;
they do not have the opportunities nor
the temptations for constant and night
ly swilling of beer and drinking of
body-rot whisky, such as exists in towns
and cities, where the open doors of
those breathing-holes of hell, the sa-
looms, confront the stroller at every
step. 1t is clear that farmers-men,
women and boys and girls over fifteen
do not average any thing like $3.50
per head for rum per year. An esti-
mate of 81 each would doubtless be ex-
travagant.
Then, with half the population thus
y
ers of rum, it is plain to be seen that
the estimate which credits the work
ing-men with half the drinking in the
entire country is, unfortunately, too
true. And we are sure that an actual
investigation of the facts will show that
this is so. Go into the rum-holes of
any city in which you have an extern
sive acquaintance with people; visit the
billiard-rooms, the gilded saloons of
the higher and more pretentious sort,
and then 90 on down through all the
grades of these hell-holes till you come
to the lowest, dirtiest dives of the most
squalid quarter, and you will find each
and all thronged with the different
= classes of wage-workers. In the "bet-
ter" class of saloons Gf there is any
thing "bctter" about a saloon), you
will find the customers largely made
! up of clerks. statesmen, and the better
paid and better-dressed class of me
chanics. Go on down through the
descending scale of saloons, and you
will find the proportion of wagc-work-
ers Just as great, even 10 the poorest
saloon where you will find the common
laborer fuddling his brains over stale
beer or firing them with doctored
whisky.
The worhing-men, we much fear, are
to be credited with one-half Of this
enormous total of 500, 000,0 900 annual
ly spent for rum. They complain of
poor wages, of not receiving the just
reward of the profits of their labor,
yet they collectively spend S35o,0Oo,-
600 every year for that which profits
them not, but reduces their capacity
for work, destroys their judgment.
ruins their health, and keeps their
families in poverty and misery. TO
ledo Blade.
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